On record, Toronto’s Great Lake Swimmers trot between the countrified rock of the Cowboy Junkies and the somber folk of latter-day Neil Young. Maybe it’s the Canadian thing. Singer-songwriter Tony Dekker has been praised for crafting brooding north-country tunes full of pleasant melody and solemn mood (call the band a clean-and-sober Lucero). And while all the built-in introspection kept things a little still at the Middle East Upstairs last night (for the first date off a U.S. tour in support of their third full-length, Ongiara), the band’s earnestness was as unavoidable as the pearl-button getup worn by banjo player Erik Arnesen.

The band is touring with support from Los Angeles-based sultry-voiced Eleni Mandell, whose country-tinged, femme-Tom Waits sketches call to mind a post-feminist Tammy Wynette. Her set, which included songs off her new album Miracle of Five, set the tone for the rest of the show: twinkling, jangly folk-pop offset by a self-aware sexuality. In her case, it was a cat-like slither, inciting some movement in the crowd when the band picked up the tempo, Mandell’s hips accompanying. She alternated between nice, soft arrangements and more galloping punk-infused tunes, her wistful temperament and clever lyrics enduring: “I’ll make you money whenever you’re gambling / I am the dice you roll in the alley / I am the pennies that come in handy,” she sang on “Girls.”

Mandell is a wise addition on Great Lake Swimmers’ tour. Whereas she was out to surprise and enlighten, the Swimmers were out to be what they were. And that’s not a bad thing. But the slow-build intro song took more time to engage than the band probably hoped, and the mid-set break, in which Dekker played a few songs solo, was less Paul Westerberg, more every sensitive-guy-with-a-guitar you’ve ever heard. Still, you had to admire the way he grimaced at the mic as he sang tight-lipped, eyes closed, strumming lightly. And the more up-tempo songs, especially the searing performance of Ongiara’s “Your Rocky Spine” (“Floating over your rocky spine / The glaciers made you and now you’re mine”) showed the band at their best: banjo plucking, drums snapping, bassline trotting along, and Dekker belting it out instead of whispering.

PUNKS FIND THEIR INNER AMERICANA | August 31, 2007 Punk might have been swept along, cleaned up, dirtied again, then separated into a million different subgenres created to simplify things when really it only complicated everything.

FOOLPROOF PUNK | August 20, 2007 Let us take a moment to appreciate New Jersey. Pure sweaty Americana: diners, freeways, and the Boss.

THE GOLDEN AGE OF COMICS | August 02, 2007 Ever wondered what would happen if the famed Simpsons ’ Comic Book Guy held a master’s in literary criticism?

LOUD, PROUD | July 17, 2007 You’ve gotta hand it to the Middle East Upstairs for understanding a little thing called volume .

CHAOS, CONTROL | June 13, 2007 There’s really no point in reviewing a show like this.